Shipwrecked Summer by Carly Syms

tall, tanned girl with long jet black hair spun around and grinned. I could hear her gum smacking from a few feet away.
        “Hey, Lil’ Ralphie!” she called out. “What’s going on?”
       “This here is Alexa Jurgens. She’s new and we’ll be putting her on the Gold Miner tonight. Show her what to do. You make me proud now, Gigi.”
        “You bet your butt I will. She’s in good hands,” she replied, then looked at me. “Alexa, eh? Let’s get to it.”
        Ralphie, apparently pleased with Gianna’s commanding attitude, nodded and walked away.
        “Lexie’s good. I, uh, I’ve never…worked a ride before,” I said. “Don’t I need some kind of training for this?”
       Gianna looked at me with one long, thin eyebrow raised. “Girl, I’m ‘bout to give you all the trainin’ you’ll ever need. What do you think I’m here for?”
        “To work your ride?”
        “Where you from with that accent, anyway? I’ve never heard that kind of talk ‘round here.”
       “Alabama,” I replied, growing conscious of my accent. Nobody commented on it much in Ship’s Wreck because I usually hung around people who already knew me.
       Gianna’s eyes widened. “Alabama!” Smack of the gum. “Wow! And here I’ve never been outside Jersey. This island’s exotic to me!”
        I smiled. “Alabama’s not exotic. It pretty much looks like most of New Jersey.”
        “Still.” She shook her head. “Alabama. That’s something. What are you doin’ all the way up here?”
        I launched into an explanation of why I spent my summers in Ship’s Wreck.
       Gianna nodded when I finished. “I gotcha,” she said. “Parents. Can’t live with ‘em, but at least until you’re eighteen, you pretty much can’t live without ‘em either.”
       I laughed as Gianna began to show me how to operate the Gold Miner, a small, circular track that had various mining cars serving as carts for the ride. It maxed out at about five miles per hour and the key was to make sure each kid was buckled in, Gianna said. Parents apparently didn’t like it so much when you forgot to safety belt their children. Neither did Ralphie.
      Four hours flew by and before I knew it, it was time to shut down the Gold Miner for the night and I was free, not having to work another shift for two days. I hadn’t been able to check my phone while working, but when I glanced down at the screen around 10 p.m. and didn’t have a single missed text or call from Pia and Joey, I started to wonder what was going on with them.
       “You let me know if you wanna hang out sometime this week,” Gianna said as we walked out the front gates and I unchained my bike. She shook her head. “I want to know more ‘bout this Alabama place.”
       I biked home to a different atmosphere on Fresh Water Island, a side I usually didn’t get to see. Ten p.m. on a Tuesday evening in June didn’t produce much traffic and apart from the occasional passing car, the island was quiet, cool, peaceful. I could hear the faint rushing of the tide down each block I passed.
       My grandparents’ house looked dark as I turned down Gull Boulevard and coasted the half mile or so to the end of the street. It looked like there was a small glow coming from the rooftop balcony at Anthony’s but I wasn’t sure.
       Whatever. Working had wiped me out. I didn’t feel like going all the way up to investigate and see if Anthony was the source of the light.
    I parked the bike in our shed before dragging myself up the few stairs and into the house. Collapsing into bed, I dreamed of nothing but roller coasters, children, and the boy next door.
     
     
     
     
     
vi.  
     
    My leg throbbed the next morning. I glanced down under the covers, pulled up my shorts, and gasped. Nearly half of my upper thigh was now decorated with a horrific dark purple bruise the size of a cantaloupe.
       Damn that Anthony! I would look